Triune Designs Blog: Web Design, Development, & Marketing

The Jeep Community
Last fall, my wife and I bought an old Jeep Wrangler. Our thought was that it would be a fun vehicle that our family could enjoy driving. (Ah, driving with the top down and the doors off – awesome!!) Little did I realize that we were joining a community. Having only owned 4Runners, Civics, and Explorers in the past, I was never truly exposed to communities built around cars.

Driving around, I immediately started to notice people in other Jeeps waving to me. After a while, I began waving back when people waved at me even progressing to where I was the initiator many times. I noticed other occurrences of the Jeep community. Other Wrangler owners began talking with me when I parked. Friends who own Wranglers offer to help me with various repair projects on the vehicle – more so than when I worked on my previous vehicles. And I am just touching the surface leaving out Jeep festivals, off-roading gatherings, etc.

I have learned that people are passionate about their Jeeps and this passion has developed a great community.

Communities All Around
What is great is that there are communities all around us and oftentimes we never see them. Some are obvious – motorcycle riders have an avid member community; some are not – have you ever seen the Mazda Miata community? Believe me, it is there (one of my old roommates, Chris Crumpton showed me that). And these examples are just dealing with cars, there are thousands of other communities out there centered around church, sports, computers, movies, occupations (just to name a few).

The definition of a community is a group of people with common ownership, common agreement as to goals, or a body of people in a learned occupation. I argue that a community is also built around people with a common passion.

Communities & You
As a small business, you are very passionate about what your company creates or sells. So, use this passion to your advantage and help build a community centered around your business.

You have two options for building a community. You can either get involved in existing communities that are related to your your passion (and/or business) or create your own. There are people who are passionate just like you, it is just a matter of finding them. Once you are involved, you can help that community develop. The other option is to build your own community (using platforms such as blogging, Facebook, or Twitter) and begin showing your passion. Make it easy for other like-passioned people to join you and help the community grow.

Have fun with your passion-based community… and if you happen to see me driving around in my Jeep make sure to give me a big wave. I will throw one back at you.

A few weeks ago I read The Anatomy Of The Twitter Attack on TechCrunch. All I can say is wow!!

In case you have not been following along on TechCrunch (TC) lately, let me fill you in. The online tech publication recently received over 300 documents from a hacker who retrieved sensitive business information from the executives at Twitter. These documents included Twitter’s financial details, executive-level meeting notes, and various documents outlining Twitter strategies, goals, and processes. Using this information, TC wrote a series of behind-the-scenes articles about Twitter and their plans for the present and future.

Security Holes
The Anatomy article reveals exactly how the hacker gained access to Twitter’s sensitive information. Hacker Croll (HC), as he wanted to be called, gained access through a Twitter employee’s Gmail account.

1. HC accessed Gmail for a Twitter employee by using the password recovery feature that sends a reset link to a secondary email. In this case the secondary email was an expired Hotmail account, he simply registered it, clicked the link and reset the password. Gmail was then owned.
2. HC then read emails to guess what the original Gmail password was successfully and reset the password so the Twitter employee would not notice the account had changed.
3. HC then used the same password to access the employee’s Twitter email on Google Apps for your domain, getting access to a gold mine of sensitive company information from emails and, particularly, email attachments.
4. HC then used this information along with additional password guesses and resets to take control of other Twitter employee personal and work emails.
5. HC then used the same username/password combinations and password reset features to access AT&T, MobileMe, Amazon and iTunes, among other services. A security hole in iTunes gave HC access to full credit card information in clear text. HC now also had control of Twitter’s domain names at GoDaddy.
6. Even at this point, Twitter had absolutely no idea they had been compromised.

Your Security
In terms of online security and privacy, this is a horror story at its finest. Jason, Freddy, and all the others would be jealous.

Web developers are always a little paranoid of security and (hopefully) try to minimize the number of security holes on a given website. This mindset should apply to everyone, though. As more of our (and our companies’) information heads on-line we need to stay mindful of keeping our data more secure.

Quick Security Tips
Here are a few quick tips for increasing your security.

• Have a different password for every on-line account.
• Change your passwords regularly
• Keep your password retrieval options up to date.
• Consider changing your security questions to things that are not true, but that you will remember.
• Keep all of your on-line apps and computer software up-to-date. (i.e. make sure you are running the latest WordPress version available. Make sure you are running the latest version of Internet Explorer, Safari, or Firefox.)
• Always be careful with email and any attachments. This is especially true if the email comes from an unknown sender or from your bank, credit card company, etc.

If you have any other online security suggestions please throw them down in the comments.

Many Thanks
Thanks to TechCrunch, Twitter (reluctantly I am sure) and H. Croll for providing us with this great example our fragile online security.

The bank vault image is courtesy of Anonymous Account and can be found on Flickr.

So, I have an apology to everyone out there in Triune Designs land. We have been a little bit off track the past few months in terms of writing for this blog.

The sabbatical has been semi-intentional. In all honesty, things have been busy around here and somehow writing for the blog got pushed to the back-burner. I know, I know – for shame!!

But that is not the only reason for the dry spell. Another reason is that we have been talking about the vision and growth for Triune Designs. Part of the discussions have included where this blog is headed and what discussion topics are more appropriate in this arena.

While we are not completely finished reassessing our company’s direction, I hope that the blog can get a kick in the butt and get going again.

Until the next time… Leo

Yikes, it has been a while since I last wrote on this blog. While almost a month has passed by, it only seems like a day. Well, back to typing away on the keyboard…

I wanted to announce a neat serve event that is going on around the Twitterverse. I believe people involved with social media all around the country (maybe the world) are organizing events for one cause: raising money to provide developing nations with clean, safe drinking water.

Charlotte’s Own Twestival
Charlotte is hosting one such event. Here are the details.

Time & Date: February 12, Doors open at 6 p.m., Festivities begin at 7 p.m.
Location: Cans Bar and Canteen, Uptown Charlotte, 500 W. 5th Street, 28202
Organized By: Jason Keath (@jakrose)
Charity/Cause: Safe drinking water for developing nations
Cost: Give what you can. Limited number of $5.00 tickets available. $100 VIP tickets come with plenty of perks. Tickets on sale now!

Event Description: Good people. Good time. Good Cause. Charlotte Twestival offers a night of socially conscious socializing, complete with entertainment and prizes. Join us February 12 to raise money and awareness for charity: water, a nonprofit organization that provides clean, safe drinking water to people in developing nations.

Questions: Contact Whitney Ferrall (@whitneyferrall)

See more details and RSVP on Social Media Charlotte

Many people make them. Many people break them. The ever-popular New Year’s Resolutions.

Did you make any New Year’s Resolutions for 2009? Let us know in the poll below.

If you did make any 2009 resolutions, which ones did you make? Throw out a couple in the comments below.

Our way of saying thanks
Thanks for you feedback in the poll above. As a way of saying thanks, here is a funny video showing a new version of rock, paper scissors.

Our family is a huge fan of rock, paper, scissors. It has solved many difficult impasses between Michele and me. We may have to try the newest version.

Google Alerts is an awesome service that keeps you posted on what is being said? We will be talking about Google Alerts in a post coming in the next couple of weeks.

In preparation for that post, I thought this would be a great question to ask everyone out there the “Triune Designs zone”: do you use Google Alerts?

Our way of saying thanks
As my way to thank you for your thoughts, here is an annoying, yet very catchy song. I hope you get a laugh out of it like I did. Thanks Dan (@djByron) for introducing this to me.

I want to take this opportunity to wish everyone a Merry Chirstmas!

Thank you for continuing to read and participate with me in this blog.

Your community and fellowship has been a huge gift to me.

Photo courtesy of me (leoschmidt08) on Flickr.